Peeling Back the Layers - Who Are You?

Before we are born, there is this beautiful piece of property with trees and flowers, and we hope maybe some love.  We’ll call this property the “twinkle in someone’s eye” that will soon be you.  You are like a house. 

On this property they put a foundation to build you on.  Hopefully that foundation is hard and strong.  Sometimes it’s based on faith, other times it‘s based on love, yet other times in money.  Occasionally it can be any combination, but hopefully it is strong.  After you are conceived the contractors go to work building the shell of the building that will house your "self."  As your gender takes shape, the architectural style begins to coalesce as well.

When you are born and utter that first sound, the door to the house is thrown wide open in welcome to your new world.  From that point on everything that happens in your life becomes a room, or furniture, or a window.  You begin to collect the future heirlooms and garage sale items of your life.  Your attitudes and emotions become the plaster, paint and light fixtures.

If we are happy and well adjusted, the rooms are bright and colorful, neat and clean.  Other times, the rooms can be cluttered and drab.  If not cleaned up it can become a dark, scary mess, frightening not only ourselves but those around us.  If we continue to keep house this way, the shell will begin to suffer and the foundation may crack.  The property value will drop. 

Admitting there is a problem is the first step to fixing the “home”, who you are, determining the problem is the next.  Cleaning up the mess is usually a good place to start.  Make it neat and orderly again.  Most people would advise a new coat of paint, better emotions equal better attitudes.  Really?  So, we’re just going to color over the issue?  Tear down one bad wall and throw up another?  Or can we admit that maybe it’s more than just the paint, more than just skin deep.

I believe everyone should clean both house occasionally, top to bottom.  Throw out the crap we don’t use anymore and cleanup the stuff we do and put it away where it belongs.  If the paint is wrong, peel back the layers until you get to the plaster and see if it has been damaged.  If it has, fixing it may not require removing a perfectly good wall if clean, new plaster will suffice.  But, if the wall is bad, if it was thrown up in haste as protection, it may need to come down.  The only way to determine this is to peel back the paint, then the plaster, and look deeper to see if the integrity of the brick has been violated.

So it is with our own personal walls.  Some are there to partition off rooms we invite people to come see, others are there to protect what we think is valuable, yet others are for protection.  What we think is valuable and what needs protecting are the rooms in our mind we need to constantly monitor and keep clean or they will overtake us and become unmanageable.  How we paint ourselves, how we appear to other people should reflect who we truly are, and not camouflage that may trick, hurt or confuse those around us. 

Everyone should occasionally review how we look, how we come off to those around us.  Are we being honest, straight forward, open, or are putting up the wrong kind of walls and covering our feeling so those around us think everything is fine.

Peel back the layers of your paint, open up your doors and curtains, let in some light to those dark areas and ask yourself, “Who am I?”  Every morning when you get up try leaning toward the mirror and asking this question of yourself.  And, ask if you’re happy with who you are or what you've done.  If your answer is not what you’d like, make a commitment to change something in your day to make it better, or to say and do something to make someone else feel better.  What do you have to lose?  You may find something out about yourself you didn't know.

We should strive to present a constant “open house” to the world, clean and neat, with lots of refreshments and finger foods on hand.  I find these visitors to my “house” force me to take constant stock of who I am and how I feel.  They make me want to be the consummate host. 

They also help keep my doors open by providing me that which I require most…friendship, happiness, peace, and fulfillment.